Steve Bruce approached this match on Sunday fearing another home defeat – after eight in the last nine league games – could herald the end of his tenure as Sunderland's manager.

Such a result would have left his team propping up the Premier League for at least seven days, not the position that the US owner, Ellis Short, had envisaged when he sanctioned a spending spree that brought in 9 new faces during the summer. But of the seven of those who started this one, two were to make match-winning – and potentially for Bruce, job-saving – contributions.

Sebastian Larsson scored once and assisted twice, and Craig Gardner, another arrival from the relegated Birmingham City, scored a first for his new club. Afterwards Bruce, perhaps mindful of the column inches devoted to his position in recent days, chose to stay silent. His assistant, Eric Black, admitted that the manager had been affected by the winless start.

"It hurts him when he doesn't win because he's a winner; he always has been and always will be," the assistant said after Sunderland moved up to 12th in the table. "It hurts him when it doesn't go the way he wants it and sometimes I think the criticism is unfair. But such is life; that's the pressure of a manager in the Premier League."

Scrutiny of Bruce intensified following the early-season defeat by Newcastle United, whose subsequent rise to fourth has merely served to amplify pressure. "There's always expectation, especially when your closest rivals are only a few miles up the road," added Black. "But that's the way it works and that's what we have to deal with and build a team who can deal with that."

Ironically, it was two former Newcastle players who settled Bruce's nerves, inside 11 minutes. Titus Bramble had already sliced two wayward passes into the stands, drawing groans from the home support, when he scored the opener, turning Larsson's corner through the feeble grasp of Asmir Begovic – those groans soon morphing to cheers.

Within five minutes the home side had doubled their tally for the season, Larsson's cross being turned over Begovic by the backpedaling Jonathan Woodgate.

By the half-hour it was three, Gardner seeing a 20-yard shot deflect beyond a rooted Begovic via Ryan Shawcross. And Larsson, signed from Birmingham in the summer, crowned his afternoon with an arrowed free-kick on 58 minutes.

It was the first time Stoke had conceded four goals in the league in 16 months but their manager, Tony Pulis, refused to use their Europa League trip to Kiev on Thursday as an excuse for his side's woeful display.

The Welshman, referring to last week's tragedy in Swansea in which four miners lost their lives, said: "If you look at south Wales this week and see what has happened down there, we live in a bubble in football and sometimes you have to look outside. Those poor people have been underground working very hard to look after their families and they would earn in a year what some of our players earn in a week.

"We cuddle our players too much at times and there's no way in a million years anybody at Stoke City will make excuses for travelling and then coming back and having bad performances."

Bruce's post-game silence, despite the opportunity for exultation, suggests a weariness in fielding questions regarding his position. On Sunday, though, his players did the talking for him.